Chapter 12: Mysteries Pile Up

Adrian ends up running late for his next appointment for today after getting dragged around by his wife's childish antics.

He was just supposed to escort Cassidy back home since not visiting her at the hospital for two whole weeks had turned out to be a stretch. Gilmore, for one, kept telling him that he should've gone there at least once, which was something he didn't do in the end.

Right now, though, Adrian thought that it's probably better that he didn't. It just happened that he already felt exhausted after not even a whole day of spending time with Cassidy.

"And why in the world did she have to make a big deal about my abs...?" he wondered silently before heaving a miffed sigh.

He is now sitting on the passenger's seat of the car together with his secretary. They are about to head back to their office, their miens and patterns of thinking already returning to work mode.

That's what Adrian tried to do at least. But then, for some reason, he just couldn't forget the scene in the bedroom earlier.

"Well, she made a big deal about them too when she still had her memories. Unlike back then, though, she appears to be somewhat terrified now... I guess...?" he continued to ponder by himself, his eyes suddenly darting down to his stomach.

"It's my first time seeing a woman run away from a man's abs."

At that moment, Adrian starts recalling how Cassidy reacted so flustered by his shirtless image that she kept stuttering and flailing about.

She was blushing madly at that point, and when he tried to come closer, she pushed him away out of nowhere. This particular reaction of hers had struck him speechless and nonplussed all over.

It certainly took the whole cake.

After all, his wife never dared to lift even a single finger against him. In fact, she's the one who kept initiating physical contact with him - shirtless or not. She would be melting in a puddle of goo by then.

"Uhhhhh... President?" Charles blurted out from beside him, making him snap out of his train of thoughts.

"What is it?" Adrian plainly replied.

"Why are you rubbing your stomach?"

Then, he paused.

Without him realizing it, he has been caressing his abs for some time now. All the while, his head was filled with nothing but Cassidy's flushed face earlier.

Adrian didn't know what got in him all of the sudden.

"Are you having a bellyache?" his secretary asked, eyeing him inquisitively.

"A headache, perhaps," he answered with another annoyed sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Should we get you some medicine?"

"No, there's no need."

He didn't intend to sound so serious when he said that, but it seemed like his assistant took it quite humorlessly. Perhaps, thinking of his troublesome wife made him look so stressed out in other people's eyes.

"By the way, Sir... Speaking of medicine..." Charles started again, his tone turning low and heavy out of nowhere.

"I just got the test results from Dr. Gilmore earlier when we got out of the hospital. He advised me to buy a certain ointment and other medicinal products. It just happened that they'd seen another physical injury on Ma'am Cassidy that they believed wasn't from the plane crash."

"Huh? Another injury?" Adrian muttured in surprise and confusion, furrowing his brows.

"Yes, Sir. More particularly, it's a third degree burn on her back. The doctor said that it wasn't as fresh as her other wounds, but it still looked like it was recently inflicted on her."

"Inflicted...? Why inflicted? Was it something done on purpose?"

"That's how it appeared to them, apparently. Even I was surprised. Dr. Gilmore had compared Ma'am Cassidy's burn mark to those types that had been caused by abuse, so he somehow had the assumption that it had been inflicted on her."

Adrian turns stiff on his seat, thoroughly thunderstruck.

Calling it as a form of abuse may be going overboard since they have no proper evidence, but then again, he knew his wife. He knew that Cassidy wasn't that clumsy to have burnt her back in accident. That scene looks even impossible to picture.

"A burn mark?" he repeated in his head, his eyes as wide as saucers.

First, her amnesia. Now, it's a third-degree burn - something that lasts for a long time.

Adrian still has little to no clue about how come Cassidy behaves so different from her adult self, but then comes another mystery he needs to resolve. Not only that, he also recalls that he still hasn't learned what she's trying to accomplish by boarding a plane back then.

Perhaps, he could just say that he didn't know anything about his wife at this point.

Mysteries were beginning to pile up right before Adrian, and for some reason, they turned out to be demanding his attention more than he thought they'd be.